Add a countdown to a marketing email

Applies to: TreStack Timer
Updated: 5 November 2026

Email apps do not run scripts, so an email timer is an image. Each open draws the time left at that moment, and opening the email again shows the current time.

Set it up

1. In TreStack Timer, create a timer and pick the email type.
2. On the Content tab, set the end date and time. It is one day out by default, in your shop timezone.
3. Choose what the image shows at zero: 00:00:00:00, the default, or a message of yours. Both keep the image the same size, so the email layout does not jump.
4. On the Design tab, set the look. The preview is the real image, redrawn as you change the form. Fonts come from the list the app draws email images with.
5. Choose Publish. The Code tab, which email timers have instead of Placement, now shows an HTML image snippet.
6. Choose Copy, then paste the snippet into a custom HTML or code block in Shopify Email, Klaviyo or any email tool that accepts HTML.

Check it in your inbox

Send yourself a test and open it on a phone and on a computer. Open it again a minute later: the time has moved. Images are drawn once a minute per timer, so every open inside that minute gets the same one.

Good to know

• Unpublish, do not delete. Deleting an email timer breaks the image in every email already sent with it, and the app warns you first. When a campaign ends, unpublish the timer instead.
• Some apps show one frame. A few email apps show only the first frame of an animated image. It is the full timer at the moment of opening, so the time is right; it just does not tick.
• No recipient tracking. The image address holds only the timer ID, with no cookies and nothing per recipient. Email opens are not timer views.
• Paste into an HTML block. A text block can change the snippet and break the image.

Frames, refresh and every setting are in Email timers.